in Gadsden, a federal judge has ruled that Glenn Holladay...

in Gadsden, a federal judge has ruled that Glenn Holladay, who has been on death row 17 years for a triple murder, cannot be executed because of his level of mental retardation.
The state attorney general's office plans to appeal, putting the ruling on hold in one of Etowah County's most notorious cases. Holladay, an escapee from the Cherokee County Jail at the time, killed his ex-wife, her boyfriend and a 16-year-old neighbor at a rural trailer home on Aug. 25, 1986 and, during more than a month on the run, is believed to have killed the uncle of his ex-wife and raped a woman in Florida.
The ruling issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Robert Propst requires that Holladay be resentenced in Etowah County without the possibility of the death penalty.
Propst said Alabama case law suggests that the IQ for someone who is mentally retarded is 70 or below. The report shows that Holladay has an average IQ score of 64, taken from 10 tests.
Holladay's execution has been delayed at least twice (see June 21, 2001) to consider whether he is mentally retarded and should not be executed under federal court rulings.
Holladay, now 57, was convicted in the 1986 shooting deaths of Rebecca Ledbetter Holladay, 31; her boyfriend, David Robinson, 25; and Larry Thomas Jr., a 16-year-old neighbor and friend of Rebecca Holladay's son.